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Does prosecuting scammers work? From time to time I hear people say that you can’t arrest yourself out of scams. To the extent that such voices are saying that there are other things that can be done (education disruption, dealing with the avenues where scam money travels, etc.) that is doubles true. But I fear that at times this is just as excuse by law enforcement which does not have the resources, training, or internal support to take action. In my experience, though, the frauds do keep a close eye on what enforcers are doing, and since they really don’t want to go to jail they avoid engaging in scams where there has been effective enforcement. For example, after the Southern District of Illinois successfully extradited some scammers who ran call centers in Canada and convicted them in the US the number of fraud call centers in Canada plummeted. And there are other types of frauds and scams that we have eliminated. If burglaries were never prosecuted is there any doubt that they would skyrocket? I doubt they would ever be eliminated, but they might be kept to manageable levels. The crooked and greedy will ever be with us. But we should all honor and encourage the law enforcement agencies that take the time and work to successfully send the crooks to the clink. They are watching what we do.
